Beneath the Balcony
by Tala Mitena
Summary: Sword across their knees, they pray for someone to take the blame. They beg for a change. But when the time comes to find themselves and start the fight, the sacrifices they make may destroy the peace they worked so hard to gain. [RS][ARx][LC]
1. Distance

Author's Note: Phew! It's finally done! I worked so hard on this; on the planning, on the thousands of different versions of this I wrote of this first chapter. But I must say, I am really, really excited about this story.

First of all I'd like to mention that this fic is the result of a silly little meme, in which you put your mp3 player on shuffle and write a story based on the first song that pops up. Mine was "Beneath the Balcony", by Iron and Wine.

Second, I'd like to give a quick thanks to The Glass Slipper, since her fic Adverstising Space awas born of the same meme and thus inspired me to write this, and she encouraged me to do so, and is often there with a reassuring livejournal comment on the many occasions on which I need to rant about my writings.

And third...

**Warning:** This fic contains several potentially disturbing scenes/instances, including particualrly graphic violence and character death.

* * *

Beneath the Balcony

_Chapter One_

"_Distance_"

* * *

In the light of a dying day – which had been rather dull and grey to begin with – Roxas found himself in a particularly unnerving situation. 

The location had been eerie enough at the start; a train station completely empty aside from himself and a few restless workers. If Roxas recalled correctly, not a week ago, at around this same time, this same station had been uncomfortably crowded. Something about the sudden, utter lack of noise and confusion sent Roxas into a state of near paranoia, though at any other time he would have found it comforting.

The few people that were scattered around the high-ceilinged room made no sound; there was not even an announcement to signify the arrival and departure of various trains. Just the dry, echoing click and flip of the changing time board.

As expected, there was no one waiting at the track where Roxas's train was scheduled to come in. Only him and his shuffling feet and over-stuffed suitcase. Everything else seemed to be missing, felt as if it had been plucked from its rightful place and now he was standing in nothing but the empty shell that was left behind.

A light breeze brushed his face, whistling slightly through the tunnel that lead back to the station. The sound was high and faint, and it sent a half-shiver through Roxas's arms, raising goose bumps and tightening his nerves.

He snorted, shaking his head so as to flip his hair out of his eyes, and blaming his pinpricked flesh on the chill of the breeze rather than the strange air of emptiness and misplacement. He wouldn't admit it, but something was off and it rattled him.

"Roxas, right?" an entirely unfamiliar voice asked, a smirk audibly decorating the speaker's unseen face.

Bewildered, Roxas turned to peer at the source through rumpled blonde bangs that had merely fallen back into place after his unsuccessful attempt to relocate them.

Unfortunately, the speaker was not nearly as unfamiliar as his voice had been. Roxas had seen him one too many times before. Over the past few weeks, he'd consistently caught glimpses of that fiery mass of hair, flashes of those verdant eyes and their tattoo thorns. But that was all they were – glimpses and flashes in a crowd. He'd never before had a voice to put behind the smirk, or a tall, lanky frame to set it all upon.

And he'd prayed that he never would.

For a very long while, Roxas debated between ignoring this familiar stranger and asking just how the man had known his name, the wind still whistling and his nerves still shivering. It was a valiant effort on the part of common sense, but curiosity – as it so often does – killed the cat.

Lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the blaze of the setting sun, which had reached an angle at which its assault on his eyes was perfectly aimed, Roxas felt a pout pucker his lips, which furthered his frustration. Pouting was supposed to be Sora's thing.

"How did you - " he began, before his voice was caught in his throat by a smile that had once been amused but was now a little more sinister, or maniacal.

"I heard you when you were talking to the teller."

Yes, Roxas remembered having answered several such questions when buying his ticket, but he also remembered that the station had been devoid of any other passengers at the time. This man had most definitely not been within earshot.

"No one was in the station then," the blonde murmured, dropping his tone in an effort to hide his discomfort.

The man's expression and crooked, slung-hip posture remained still as he answered, "Only those who were necessary."

"What?" Roxas almost snapped, his level of annoyance rising considerably at this vague, nonsensical statement.

An easy shrug lifted the redhead's shoulders. "Visiting a friend?" he drawled knowingly.

Blinking, the younger nodded. Hayner had moved to the suburbs a few months ago and had begged him to visit. Roxas had only agreed for one reason: to try and lose the fiery hair and slashing smirk that now stood before him.

He cleared his throat noiselessly, stretching to his full height and setting his face into a less affected composition. "You've been following me," he said accusingly, taking care to narrow his eyes and raise his chin in a manner that had always succeeded in dragging the truth out of Sora.

The stranger chuckled, a low, stumbling – albeit pleasing – sound that brewed happily in his throat. "For longer than you'd care to know," he admitted, stepping closer to Roxas. His grin was so lopsided, bright, and wide that Roxas couldn't help but take a few cautionary steps backwards. His thigh connected with his suitcase, knocking it over. The resulting thud echoed loudly in the empty, open air.

Roxas kept his eyes trained on the redhead. "Why?" he asked shakily.

The other man responded only with a slight, upward jerk of his chin and a quirk of his eyebrow.

With a thundering, clamoring whoosh of air, a passing train claimed Roxas's attention. His nervous retreat had brought him meager inches away from the platform's edge, and the dizzying realization threatened to throw him into the blur of metal. His heart pounded, but his blood stood stagnant in his veins as he stumbled, turning to watch the train, eyes wide and lips pale.

The track emptied as quickly as it had been filled, and the air popped with the small sound of a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. The will to retrieve it was nowhere to be found, and his knees suddenly resented the weight they were holding, shaking and knocking and threatening to topple. Roxas felt cold, and sweat dripped from his forehead as he ground his teeth and struggled to stay standing. He would not let himself fall in front of this man.

As the thought crossed his mind, the shock that this was all he could think of after nearly dying proved enough to steady him and allow him to catch his breath; though his breathing seemed either too shallow or slightly off rhythm. Ignoring this slight discomfort, he took a step backwards in preparation to turn and continue his previous conversation.

A solid warmth stopped his progress as thin hands slowly worked their way up his sides, coming to rest on his ribcage. He made a move to push the stranger away, but found that he was frozen in place; from shock, maybe. A near death experience followed by such molesting was probably enough to stun you motionless.

Hot breath slithered past his ear, curling in the crook of his neck as a sinister voice whispered in amusement.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

In the instant that those words had disappeared, Roxas felt a strange sensation, as if some unseen tether had been cut, and he staggered in place before whirling around to confront his stalker.

But the platform was clear. Where there had once stood a thin, smirking creep, there was now, inexplicably, nothing. Bright blue eyes scanned the surroundings carefully, narrowing as Roxas's mouth was again drawn into a hated pout. When they reached the track where the blonde had nearly met his match, they found yet another train, still and quiet with doors open, patiently waiting for its passenger.

Wonder at where his stranger had gone, and how he had gotten there so quickly, was pushed aside by Roxas's worry that those patient doors would soon close and he would be out fifty bucks. He leaned down to grab the handle of his suitcase and drag it into the train, down the compartment aisle, and hoist it onto the overhead luggage rack.

Sliding into his seat, Roxas was glad to find that there were several others in the compartment. An old man, his crooked nose buried in a crisp newspaper, across the hall. In front of him, a shock of hair of an indeterminate gender, and back a few seats, a young man with a young woman curled sleeping at his side. He felt like the real world had caught up with him at last, and, to his surprise, it was a strange feeling. Maybe _he_ had been the one plucked from his rightful place, and now he'd been dropped back in, slightly askew.

Shrugging, Roxas brushed such thoughts aside, labeling them as the beginnings of bad poetry and leaning against the window to shut his eyes and just relax; let the train rush right past the world he was glad to be leaving behind as he headed towards home.

* * *

The horse was dying. 

It showed no outward signs of dying; its coat was shining copper and healthy, its mane and tail well groomed. It happily grazed in its quaint, fenced-in pasture, shifting the weight on its back legs and brushing away flies with its tail. Thick, powerful muscles shifted visibly under its taught skin, and its ears flickered, picking up thousands of distant sounds.

And yet, somehow, Roxas knew the horse was dying.

Concerned, he walked forward, blinking at the beast and placing a hand on the damp, upper beam of the old-fashioned fence. Under even his brief, gentle touch, the wood crumbled with a dry shifting noise, falling away in blunt, rotten splinters. The rest of the beam's balance was lost and it fell forward, slipping easily away from the notch in the post it rested in. It crashed into a second beam with a dull crack, splitting the length of wood and allowing it to dissolve into splinters as well.

Roxas stepped back, looking around nervously to make sure no one had seen the destruction he'd somehow managed to cause. The air was still, and for as far as he could see there was nothing but grass, a stretch of forest at the edge of the pasture, and, in the opposite direction, the occasional clump of trees. He'd expected some sort of barn or stable to rise unnaturally from the ground, and yet there was only the fence.

Shrugging, he passed through the space created by the fallen rungs and made his careful way to the dying horse. It's back was to him, and so he made sure that his steps were heavy and audible as he traced his way in a wide arch towards the horse's starred face.

It snorted impatiently, as if to acknowledge Roxas's slow approach, lifting its head and swinging its long neck gracefully around to blink at him with large, dull eyes.

Maybe it was the eyes…

The soft, distant sound of a hawk's cry echoed through the stagnant air, capturing the horse's attention, its ears standing alert and its muscles tensing. Roxas followed the line of its sight to the nearby stretch of woods. There was no sign of the bird, just the unmoving trees, their branches heavy with fresh leaves.

Snorting himself, Roxas turned back to the horse, resting a palm against the side of its neck and frowning softly. He had never interacted much with horses, but he knew that a horse of this shade, in this heat – hell, any living horse, of any shade, in any heat – should have been warm to the touch. This one was cool and smooth as stone. Nothing about its feel seemed alive. If not for its constant movement, its blinking and shifting, he never would have guessed that it wasn't a statue.

Which still didn't explain why, from a distance, with nothing to go on but appearances and behavior, Roxas had thought – no, _known_ – that the horse was dying.

A flutter of branches to the left sent the bay trotting, a little less than amiably, away, tossing its head and whinnying softly. Roxas stood still as the hawk cried again, finally drifting lazily from the woods to follow the retreating horse.

* * *

He had no idea why the dream disturbed him so much. There was absolutely nothing strange about it; nothing disturbing about a horse and a hawk, even if the horse was dying. Nothing much had even occurred in this dream. He'd seen the horse, an old fence had broken, and the hawk had flown. Everything had been so straightforward, simple, and normal. 

Maybe it was that simplicity, that normalcy, that frightened him. On the rare occasion that he'd had the fortune to remember his dreams, they had all been twisted, off-color versions of reality, or nonsensical happenings in some strange alternate world. This dream had been completely realistic. The colors, the events, everything was as it would have been in the waking world. It didn't matter that Roxas had, without any sign or warning, known the horse was close to death, because it was a dream. There was no precursor, no past to that dream, and so – he reasoned – there could have been any number of ways that he had learned about the horse before the dream had begun.

Silently, he laughed at himself. Dwelling on dreams wasn't something he made a habit of, and he didn't see any reason why this dream should be different. So, he pushed the thoughts aside and continued his way across the parking lot, eyes locked on a familiar car in the far corner. As he trudged closer, dragging his heavy luggage behind him, the driver's door opened slowly, a little slip of a teenager exiting and stretching onto his tip-toes to wave excitedly.

"Hey! How was it?" The boy asked as Roxas reached him to stare into a face identical to his own. Oftentimes the only noticeable differences between the two were the shade of their hair and the set of their mouths. Roxas's baby-blues were framed by gold, Sora's by chocolate; Roxas's mouth lay in a thin, indifferent line, Sora's stretched in a wide grin or puckered in a confused, stubborn pout.

Shoulders rising in a shrug, Roxas answered. "Alright, I guess."

Sora mimicked his twin's shrug, though it rested considerably more easily on his small shoulders. After a short, silent moment, his eyes slid towards Roxas, blinking slowly, their expression a good deal dimmer than it had been seconds earlier.

"How's Hayner?" he asked reluctantly. As Roxas turned to look at his brother, Sora dropped his head quickly, that familiar pout tracing his lips.

"He's…okay," the blonde answered just as cautiously. He'd expected this question from Sora, who had once been much closer to Hayner than his twin now was, or – Roxas suspected – than he wanted to be. Neither of them had offered any explanation as to what had brought about the end of their friendship, and the Roxas never had a mind to request one.

"Did he…say anything? About me, I mean." The brunette finally lifted his head, feigning only passing interest in the answer.

"Yeah," Roxas lied, "He asked how you were. I said you were doing well."

"Oh. Uh, good then. I'm glad."

Raising a brow sharply, Roxas wondered at what Sora had meant by his jumbled response. With another shrug, he decided not to bother and opened the door to the car's passenger seat. His brother followed suit shortly after, starting the car and clearing his throat as he backed out of the parking space.

"Cloud's back," Sora mentioned casually as they slipped easily into the flow of traffic on the freeway.

"Where did he go?" No one had said anything about Cloud being gone in the first place; not to Roxas anyway.

"To visit Ansem. I think that's what he said…anyway, he's back now."

Frowning, Roxas shrugged and turned to watch the passing suburbia through his window. He wasn't very fond of the whole scenic view thing, but it provided better entertainment than his brother's current grappling for a subject that would take his mind off…whatever. Hayner?

They passed a farmhouse after a few minutes, its sprawling acres of emptied fields lined with the grey, double-railed wooden fence often used for outlining such properties. Roxas's thoughts instantly returned to his dream, which inevitably led them back to the train station.

He wondered if he should mention the stalker to Sora. It was a big deal – Sora would want to know. But would Sora believe him?

The whole experience had been surreal, Roxas wasn't even sure of its reality himself. Shrugging, he decided it was worth a shot. He'd always found that talking things out seemed to help him sort through everything.

"I…" he trailed off, somehow unable to work past his unbidden hesitation.

"Yeah?" Sora asked, songbird eyes flicking briefly towards his twin.

"I think someone's been following me."

The smaller boy made a squeaking, half-stifled sort of shriek as his head whipped to the side to stare wide-eyed at Roxas.

"Sora," the blonde warned, nervously watching the road.

"What? How can…who…Roxas?"

Roxas wasn't sure if Sora was worried because someone was following his twin, or if he was just concerned for Roxas's sanity. Both were equally likely, so Roxas carefully studied Sora's expression as the other boy finally returned his attention to driving.

"Can you please explain this to me, Roxie?" he requested after a short, silent moment.

Hating the sound of Sora's nickname for him, Roxas took a deep breath before slowly explaining his stalker's fleeting appearances and the incident at the train station.

As he did so, a quick chill sputtered up his spine and the sound of the strange redhead's easy chuckle rang in his ears. It took all his willpower to prevent himself from turning to confirm that the backseat was indeed empty.

"You're sure you didn't see him in the station, before you got to the track?" Sora asked once Roxas had finished. His tone was flat.

"Yeah. I've been…checking for him lately." He didn't like how that sentence made him sound - paranoid, obsessive.

"Well," the brunette sighed, "Be careful."

Sora sounded worried. Roxas could tell it wasn't because of the stalker. It was because of Roxas.

* * *

"You're still here," Axel said with a quick, exasperated sigh. 

Riku blinked slowly, coughing purposefully as he tucked his knees under his chin and hugged his thighs to his chest. It was a striking sight; the gleam of silver hair and glow of turquoise eyes set against the room's otherwise colorless décor.

Prolonged silence. Riku refused to move, eyes fixed almost longingly on the thick, completely opaque curtains that hung on the only window. Axel leaned against the far wall, close to the door, absently scratching at the small tattoo on his cheek.

After several, very long moments, the redhead pushed away from the wall with another short sigh.

"Move on, kid."

Closing his eyes, Riku uncurled and leaned back to lie on the cool, tiled floor.

Thousands of memories flickered across his mind.

"_I like your scent best,"_ _the unseen boy whispered, hair falling forward to brush at the nape of Riku's neck._

"_Somehow, it actually _helped_ my aim."_

"_I feel like I'm not helping him at all, like he made a mistake…when…never mind. You probably don't want to hear all this."_

_"I know it's not right, but I can't help but be thankful for it. I love it," the girl sneered, voice icy with malice._

"_Be careful, Riku."_

And finally:

_"Hey kid, promise to never forget me? No matter what happens?"_


	2. Matricide

Author's Note: Well hey there everyone. I'm back...over a year later...heh. However, I promise, promise, promise, that it won't take me nearly as long to update this darling again. It's depressing how long it took me this time around, but this story is quite the undertaking, and...well, really, I have no excuses. I just hope you enjoy it and that you'll still be here when Chapter Three is finally churned out!

P.S. Sorry this one's so short...but I couldn't bring myself to continue it. I really like cutting it off where I did, haha.

* * *

Beneath the Balcony

_Chapter Two:_

"_Matricide"_

* * *

Sora slid the paper across the gleaming wood of the desk, right into the woman's waiting hand. She smiled at him sweetly, and glanced at the page quickly. Her big brown eyes scanned it expertly, taking only a second to soak in all the information held on that thin slip of white. She reached behind her to adjust the blue ribbon that held her mahogany hair back from her face, her lips twisting into a small, concerned pout. A reproachful clucking sounded from the back of her throat.

"Cutting it a little close, aren't we, Sora?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Smiling again, the woman shook her head. "Don't be, darling."

Under any other circumstance, Sora would have hated being called by the endearment, but over the past two or three years his visits to the Agency's high school headquarters had been increasing, and he'd developed a sort of friendship with some of the women who worked there. It was a slightly strained, formal friendship; really more of an advanced acquaintanceship. Belle was the one that had dealt with him most often, and so he'd come to really like her, despite the fact that she did work for the Agency.

As Belle began transferring the information from Sora's form to the sleek computer at her desk, another woman passed behind her, yawning. She glanced almost secretively at the paper, her amethyst eyes sliding down the length of her nose as she quirked her lips to one side and swept a lock of thick, golden hair off of her shoulder. Sora could almost see the words there imprint themselves permanently into her mind, and he frowned.

"Good morning, Aurora," he said, hoping to pull her attention away from the rather personal information written on the form she was so keen to investigate.

"Good morning, Sora," she crooned instantly, looking up to flash him a brilliant smile. It faded almost as quickly as she had managed to conjure it, and she turned herself towards him just a bit and lowered her voice as she continued. "Traveling permits are going to be quite a bit more difficult to obtain soon. Once they catch wind of how often Cloud has been out of the city, that is."

Sora nodded thanks, unconcerned by the warning. It wouldn't be the first time the Agency had punished the entire city for some meaningless thing Cloud had done.

"Hey Belle, has Roxas turned in his permit yet?" he asked, turning towards the brunette.

Belle froze at her computer and looked at him, her eyes filled with apology. "You know I can't say," she murmured.

"Right. Sorry."

Biting on her lower lip and raising her chin a little, Aurora spoke up. Her pose was filled with purpose, and Sora wondered at it briefly before tuning in to hear what she had to say.

"Jasmine and Megara are both off today, so you'll be meeting with Ariel. I'll show you the way to her office."

Sora nodded , before tossing a 'thank you' to Belle as he fell into step behind the blonde. The other woman nodded back before turning to pick up a stamp, which she pounded several times down on his paper. During this process, both their eyes wandered to the cluster of security cameras in the corner of the room, silently documenting every trace of movement.

As he followed Aurora through the stark, sterile hallways that lead to Ariel's office – whoever she was – Sora wondered at the absence of both Jasmine and Megara. It was an unusual occurrence, one that the Agency, Sora knew, had worked hard to prevent. Everyone in the city was assigned a Personal Interviewer, and a Secondary Inquirer in the case that the first was unavailable. The PI's main purpose was to closely monitor each citizen's comings and goings, to ensure that their paperwork had been truthfully completed and that no traveling permits had been granted under false terms. Setting it up so that each and every civilian was interrogated by a familiar face was the Agency's way of discouraging lying.

Their second method for avoiding falsities was to employ beautiful young women, fresh out of a private academy specifically designed for training Interviewers. Sora himself had seen at least a few of his own classmates yanked from public schools to be dropped into these Agency-run polishing schools which taught girls how to look pretty, which questions to ask, in precisely what manner to ask them, how to report back to the government after every syllable, and how to be charming and trustworthy all the while.

Sora did not trust most of the Interviewers as far as he could throw them. Belle, and, to an extent, Jasmine were exceptions to this, though. Megara had always come across as slightly too eager about her position for Sora's liking, and Aurora...well...

Aurora did not quite seem to fit in with the rest of the women he'd encountered within the Agency. She was always in her own head, always dreaming.

"You know," she murmured liltingly, the skirt of her pale pink sundress swaying almost in rhythm with her words as she continued down the hall, "there was a young man in here earlier today who looked quite a bit like you. Do you have any brothers, Sora?"

The boy smiled impossibly wide, thanking the blonde silently with the bright, relieved shine of his eyes. "Yeah. Twin brother."

"Huh. Imagine that." Her satisfied smirk was just the right size to be caught by her companion, but not by the many cameras lining the white walls of the Agency's maze. Not a moment later, she stopped in front of a well-concealed door, held it open for Sora, and informed him that Ariel would be in soon. He took a seat in the white, oversized armchair in the center of the room, and stared blankly at the unfinished wooden desk that stood before him.

Sora pouted and considered his current situation. He'd expected only to come in, drop off his paperwork, and agonize over Roxas's doing the same while answering mundane questions asked by the dark-haired Jasmine. Instead, Sora had been granted information absolutely forbidden him by the government by one of its more highly ranked officials, and was about to answer mundane questions asked by some strange Inquirer he had yet to meet. The Agency was not quite on track today, it would seem.

The door opened not two minutes after he had sat down, and a young woman – Sora hesitated on the cusp of calling her a girl – floated in. Her face was still round with youth, and a heavy red bang bounced over her blue eyes with every step she took towards him, a nervous smile wavering on her lips.

"Hello, Sora," she half-sang, shutting the door quietly behind her and not bothering to cross to the desk from which both Jasmine and Megara had usually conducted their interviews. Sora nodded back to her, blinking skeptically as he examined her more closely. She looked professional enough, in a dark green pencil skirt and lavender silk blouse, but was clearly anxious about something. Shrugging, he decided that she was probably just new, and wary of making mistakes early on in the job. He knew he would be terrified of botching anything that had to do with the city's overbearing interest in its denizens.

"It says here that your permit was granted so that you could travel just outside the city limits in order to pick up your twin brother at the train station?" she recited, staring intently at the clipboard in her hands and pulling her lower lip between her teeth.

"Yes," Sora answered curtly.

"And your brother was visiting a friend in Twilight Town?"

"Yes."

"Did you make any stops on the way to or from the station, aside from those at the Checkpoints and at the station itself?"

"No."

Ariel shrugged, pursing her lips and blowing a stray hair out of her eyes. "Good enough for me," she chirped, turning on her heel uneasily and reaching for the door.

"That's it?" Sora cried, his eyes frantically scouring the room. If she made any mistakes here, he was the one that would pay for them.

"There aren't any cameras in this room, Sora," she whispered, back to him. Her entire body had tensed and her hand was wrapped, white-knuckled, around the doorknob. "And there is one other thing that needs to be done."

"And what's that?" the brunet asked, even more softly than Ariel had previously spoken. Her confession about the lack of cameras in the room had spooked him, and very much so. If they weren't being closely monitored, then something else – something big – was going on.

"Nothing, really," Ariel murmured quickly, turning back to face him. "A nurse will be in shortly to take a blood sample. It's nothing serious, though. The station you were at yesterday reported unusually high levels of...well, it doesn't matter. We just have to make sure that everyone that was in the train station yesterday is unaffected."

With that, the girl slipped through the door, and Sora gaped at the spot where she had been standing, almost oblivious to the arm that snaked past Ariel to keep the door from closing as a figure moved swiftly into the room. The nurse that had been indicated before, as it turned out, was a lean-muscled man in his early twenties, grinning sardonically at his patient, who in turn smiled wearily up at him.

"You're a nurse?" Sora asked, raising a brow at the man's rather unusual dress for such a position: a white linen shirt and dark brown leather pants.

"You could call me that," the man replied with a quirk of his brow and the slight trace of an accent Sora did not recognize.

"What else am I supposed to call you?" the boy replied with a scoff and a puzzled look as he watched the supposed-nurse wheel in a silver cart, on top of which rested a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a cotton ball, a tin tray, and a small syringe. Sora eyed them all with suspicion.

"Well, that, my friend, is quite the question," the man sighed, letting the cart rest finally and pulling a chair from behind the desk to Sora's right. He turned it backwards and sat down, straddling the seat with his abdomen pressed against the back of the chair. As he continued he wet the cotton ball with the alcohol, and reached out gently for the brunette's right arm. "Some people call me a cheater. Most, however, call me by my name; Balthier."

"Cheater?" Sora asked, clearing his throat as the other man wiped off the spot on Sora's inner arm right below the crease of his elbow.

"You'll come to understand one day," Balthier muttered, all lightheartedness suddenly forgotten. There was small pinch as the needle sank beneath Sora's skin, and another a moment or two later as it was removed. After that, the older man reached into his pocket and handed Sora a business card. The boy turned it over carefully in his hands. Both sides were completely blank.

"We'll find you when we get some results," the nurse explained, staring at the brunette pointedly. "But before I go, can I ask you a rather personal question?"

"Yes?"

"Do you love your mother, Sora?"

Sora blinked rapidly, his heart racing in recognition. Long ago someone had warned him there might be a time when this question would be asked him. Not too long ago, he had nearly forgotten why it so mattered how he would choose to answer.

"My mother is dead to me, Balthier."

Grinning crookedly, and chuckling deep in his throat, Balthier answered with a wicked glint in his grey eyes. "As it should be."


End file.
